Thursday, July 17, 2014

Rex Beach, The Spoilers (1906)

As a writer of popular fiction, Rex Beach
hit the ground running with this, his first published novel, set in the gold
rush days of Nome, Alaska. Its story was based on actual events and portrays
attempts by crooked lawyers, politicians, and a judge to jump claims of
legitimate miners already extracting fortunes from the gold fields.

Plot. The central character is Roy Glenister, a
young and ambitious man, who has been prospecting for three years with his
partner, an older man named Dextry. Their mine, the Midas, is one of the richest
in the area. Returning by steamer from Seattle, where they have spent the
winter, they learn that their claim is being challenged in court, and until the
suit is settled, the Midas is being put in receivership, to be operated by a
lawyer, Alec McNamara.

His intention is to make off with all the
gold while the dispute remains stalled in legal proceedings. The judge,
Stillman, provides the authority to carry out the plan, denying all requests to
expedite judgment and refusing any appeals. A U.S. marshal arrives to enforce
the law, such as it is, and the judge has troops from a nearby army post for support
should they be needed.

Once the miners realize that they are the
victims of a plot to steal their claims, they organize as vigilantes to take
them back by force, threatening Stillman and McNamara with bodily harm.
Glenister, who prefers to avoid violence is caught in the middle. He has fallen
in love with Stillman’s niece, Helen Chester, and wants to stay in her good graces.

Nome beach, 1898

Romance. A standard theme in fiction of the
period, the life-transforming attraction of a man to a young, pretty woman,
drives much of the novel’s plot. Out here beyond the fringe of civilization,
Helen Chester stands for law and order. Glenister tells her it’s “God’s free
country” and the only law that’s needed is courage and a Colt’s. But he offends
her when he tells her he subscribes to the Darwinian principle of survival of
the fittest. “What I want, I take,” he says and steals a kiss.

Realizing that this kind of behavior is
not going to win her heart, he complies with court orders without a fight,
believing it will show him in a better light. But she is not persuaded. There
is a “reckless energy” about him that lacks self-restraint. She is more taken
by the likes of McNamara, whom she trusts as a representative of the law and
the colleague of her uncle.

Port, Nome, 1899

Another woman, Cherry Malotte, has
followed Glenister from Dawson and hopes to rekindle a romance that seems to have
been passionately pursued there on the Klondike—until he lost interest. She
still carries a torch for him while she works as a dance hall girl for the Bronco
Kid, a gambler who runs a saloon with games of chance and a theater. Regarding
Glenister as a rival, he wants to kill him, but as luck would have it, he turns
out to be the long lost brother of Helen Chester, which Cherry uses in a
bargain with the Kid to save Glenister’s life.

This is all high melodrama, which sweeps
through the last half-dozen chapters of the novel while a violent storm rages
ashore along the coastline. Helen is lured to an isolated inn and assaulted by
another unscrupulous lawyer, Struve. As she fights for her honor, her attacker is
mortally shot by the Bronco Kid, who has been injured in a fall from his horse.
Glenister and McNamara then confront each other in a mighty fight that leaves
McNamara with a broken arm.

Understanding finally that the scheme to
jump the claims of rightful owners, though lawful, has been a miscarriage of
justice, Helen makes a discovery about herself as well. In her fight to ward
off the advances of Struve, she has pulled a gun on him “in defense of her most
sacred self.” Willing to shoot the man, she has seen that self “stripped to
its purely savage elements.” United with Glenister on the novel’s final pages,
she admits to him that she has witnessed in her “wild rage of desperation” her
own capacity for brutality. They are two of a kind, and she will stay with
him in Alaska as long as he wants her.

Nome, Alaska, 1907

Storytelling style. Though fiercely
overwritten by today’s standards, the novel shows a gift for tight plotting,
suspense, characterization, and atmosphere. Beach captures with strong visual imagery
the setting of the story in the flung-together settlement of Nome, where muddy
lanes, streets, and pathways connect a tent city extending along miles of open
beach exposed to the elements and lighted by the midnight sun.

Beach also has an arresting way of wringing
drama from scenes that grip the senses. Here an armed man dripping wet from the
deluge of a storm outside, threatens another man at gunpoint and then slips
back into the night: “He felt behind him for the outer door-knob—and turned it
to let in a white sheet of rain, then vanished like a storm wraith, leaving a
parched-lipped man and a zigzag trail of water, which gleamed in the lamplight
like a pool of blood.”

The novel opens with a breathless scene in
which Glenister and Dextry help Helen escape from sailors trying to prevent her
from getting aboard a ship as a stowaway. In another lengthy scene, Beach
describes how a faro game is being played, the dealer working with a marked
deck, as excited players crowd the table making bets and counter bets.

Rex Beach

Wrapping up. Born in Michigan and growing up in Florida, Rex Beach (1877–1949) was college-educated
and an adventurer. He was preparing for a law career in Chicago when he raced
off to the Klondike to prospect for gold, and stayed for five years.

He never struck it
rich as a prospector, but he turned the experience into best-selling fiction,
gaining early recognition as a writer of short stories. Appearing first in McClure’s and Everybody’s Magazine, they were followed by nearly 100 stories and
serials in several publications, many of them in Cosmopolitan.

Beach produced
numerous novels, set variously in the Yukon, Panama, Florida, and the Texas oil
fields. Besides The Spoilers, three
other novels were among the year’s top-10 bestsellers: The Barrier (1908), The
Silver Horde (1909), and The Net
(1912). The Spoilers became a play, running
briefly on Broadway in 1907, then a film in 1914 with William Farnum as Roy Glenister:

The film was remade
four times, including once with Gary Cooper (1930) and once with John Wayne
(1942). Altogether, Hollywood made films of more than 50 of Beach’s titles. His
autobiography, Personal Exposures, was
published in 1941.Addendum
from a reader. You didn’t mention that this book is the
fictionalized life of a very historic character here in North Dakota, Alexander
McKenzie. In the early days, pre and post statehood, he was a major player and
was known as “The Boss.” After incarceration, he beat it back here and
took up with his old ways. Just thought you’d like to know.

Ron,The Cherry Malotte character appears in The Silver Horde, played by Evelyn Brent, as a sequel of sorts, or not? Oh, and I know that both Scott and Wayne wanted to ;ay Glenister. Scott won the billing and Wayne the part. Fair enough. I found Scott more winning. In an unofficial sequel the stars, all three, played in Pittsburgh. In that, Scott won the girl, and bested the villain, Wayne in a fight. Reunited at the conclusion. Great fun.

I read only one Rex Beach as a teenager, its title long forgotten. The others just weren't available. By the way, I read and enjoyed Son of the Middle Border. At your suggestion, I've downloaded The New Road. Jacobite Scotland and the Old West - some lawless similarities, I think.

An interesting review of a fascinating story, Ron. In some ways it sounds like a present-day western, perhaps because of the potpourri of characters, and the twists and turns. I usually lose track of characters if I'm reading a book like this one on my tab. It's so much easy to flip back the pages of a book and re-read about a character or event.